"Memory" Day

Wow, this weekend did not go as planned at all. We went to the cemetary to visit Parker on Sunday afternoon instead of on Monday because we were heading to Snowbird where my parents had a timeshare condo there. We were going to spend the rest of Sunday and also all of Monday there with my parents. We don't have any money (poorer then rocks (Lindi-lingo)) so we took advantage of this "vacation" and do something fun.

Because we have no money we couldn't do much for Parker. We got $7 worth of cheap fake flowers... that was all we could do. In a lot of ways it made it extra hard this year. Here are the reasons:

1. Parker would be 5 this year and going into Kindergarten this year. He would be entering this new stage of life. It is sometimes hard to know people I love (like my nephew, James; niece, Reese; and my best friends son, Lewis) all get to experience that this year as they are the same age as Parker. It is hard to see how much they can do and how grown up they are. Alas, there is nothing I can do to change it... but it is still hard.

2. We didn't have anything special to do for Parker this year. We waited until the day before to buy him the flowers since we don't have money. Because of this all the pinwheels were all gone..... Parker would have loved to have a pinwill. I think we are going to have a tradition to start finding cool and fun pinwills and add a new one each year so eventually he will have a slew of pinwheels for Memorial Day.

.... So back to this weekend. My brother Mark and sister-in-law, Jme came up to the condo with their daughter Isabela (22 months old). They came up just that night and were heading back to Ogden that night to pack up more as they are moving to Tucson, AZ. They brought a neighbor and her two kid. The boy is 4 and the girl is 2. Long story short... even with us checking on the kids a lot (they were watching a movie in the other room) the 4 year old ended up going into the bathroom and getting into my dad blood pressure medicine!!!!!!!!!! We knew there was a lot missing and a bunch were mixed in a glass of water. My niece had come into the room with a pill in her mouth!!!!!! Poison Control told us to get to the hospital asap. We all headed to Primary Children's Medical Center... where we have so many memories with Parker and here it is almost Memorial Day.

We knew Isabela had the slightly crushed up pill in her mouth and the boy said he took some. We didn't know if Tyler did... he said he didn't but we didn't know for sure... and what if he drank some of it! In the end after NINE HOURS of monitoring the three kids the only one who had some issues was the boy. So we think Tyler and Isabela didn't. It sure was A LONG LONG NIGHT!!!!

We had a lot of emotions running through us... being in the hospital where Parker's remaining days were (other then 2 days at home before he died). We pulled into the same parking lot. Existed for a time in the same environment. Tyler had the stickers put on him to monitor his heart... the same stickers Parker always had to have. We slept on the same COMPLETELY UNCOMFORTABLE pullout beds. The same alarms going off whenever the monitors came loose. The same forms to sign. The same questions asked. ....


(Tyler didn't want the stickers taken off because he was scared of them hurting him)

But then there were the things that were different that were almost harder:
1. The fountain in the lobby was gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was hard for me. When we left the hospital with Parker he would throw coins into the fountain. He loved it! The Wednesday afternoon where we took Parker home to die, we put a few coins in Parker's hand and "helped" him throw them in the fountain.... now the fountain is gone.
2. Spiderman and Mike Wazowski were gone! We took photographs of Parker in front of them when he was born before we took him home after his first heart surgery. We did it again after the second one too. Now they are gone.

They have done great things to the lobby. It looks really nice... but the memory things are now gone... and will never come back... I didn't like not having them there, but alas change happens unfortunately. I don't like having Parker gone either. I just want to be normal and have my son to raise like a normal family. I have learned sooooooooo much from this trial. I am very grateful for what I have learned, don't get me wrong. I just wish I could hold Parker still. I just wish memories didn't fade.

Parker? I love you.